WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE by Garrison...

WLT: A RADIO ROMANCE by Garrison Keillor (Penguin: $11; 401 pp.). This rambling novel about the early days of radio in Minnesota is based on a series of stories Keillor wrote during the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, which were collected in “Happy to Be Here.” When “WLT” first appeared, many fans were shocked by bawdy passages that seemed out of keeping with the hymn-singing image Keillor cultivated on his radio programs. The occasional descriptions of sex and flatulence seem less disturbing than the book’s unremitting dullness. The silly characters that could sustain a brief short story are too shallow to hold a reader’s interest for 400 weary pages. In the introduction to “Happy to Be Here,” Keillor made fun of the pointless, sprawling novel he attempted to write one summer; he might have been describing “WLT.”